Sermon manuscript:
Let me tell you something strange: On the one hand, nobody
likes being corrected. On the other hand, everybody likes correcting others.
It’s like there’s a one way street. All correction is to issue forth from us
unto others. We resent it when any correction might come from others upon us.
Jesus once asked, “Why do you focus on the speck that is
in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye?
How will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ when, in
fact, you have a beam in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the beam from
your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your
brother’s eye.”
Try to imagine what that might look like. Whenever the
person moves his head, this big beam or log is swinging around. Regardless of
that log, all the correcting is a one way street. Wherever that beam happens to
swing is where that critical eye will notice something wrong. Everybody else is
subpar. You alone are right. It must get lonely as you sit atop that mountain
of righteousness, all by yourself.
So how might we fix this? Certainly something must be said
for Jesus’s advice: “Judge not, lest you be judged.” Stop judging. Stop
correcting others. Just for the sake of outward peace and harmony it is often
good to hold your tongue. There is a common false belief that judging and
censuring and condemning is the sign of a great intellect or a vigorous
prophetic spirit.
Thus, particularly in the church, it is easy to find people
who are never satisfied with anything that is not their own. Martin Luther
called these people “sour-faced saints.” Their faces always looked as though
they had been sucking on lemons. Because they were always so sour about
everybody else’s supposed misdeeds, they thought that they were very saintly.
Unfortunately for them, judging is not named as one of the
fruits of the Holy Spirit. The whole tone and tenor of that list of the fruit
of the Spirit goes against these sour-faced saints. “The fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control.” There is an openness in this list. We are to be open to
others. If we meet others with intending to shoot them down, we always need to
have our pistol at the ready. Be ready to shoot, lest the other person get
their shot off first. Such a person is closed rather than open—always on the
defensive, always ready to strike back. They do not want to be corrected, so
they always have their attacks ready to put a stop to being corrected before it
even starts.
This way of protecting one’s self, of closing down, of
shutting one’s self off from others, is a natural response. Here we see that
what is “natural” is not what is godly. It is natural to shut down and protect
yourself, but that isn’t godly. There are a lot of things that are “natural”
but nevertheless ungodly. Lust is natural. Anger is natural. Greed is natural.
Loving your friends and hating your enemies is natural. Yet Jesus says, “Love
your enemies, and do good to those who persecute you.” Loving those who
want to hurt you is impossible for our flesh, which is always looking out for numero uno. It is that same looking out
for numero uno that shuts people off
from others, guns drawn, finger on the trigger.
The alternative is an openness that is manifested in
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But
with this openness, honesty, laying your heart out there, there is the
possibility of getting hurt.
Let me try to explain. Perhaps you can see this most easily with
children, for they have not yet become so guarded and jaded. Suppose there’s a
child who likes to play with a toy that his peers might think is for younger
kids. The child doesn’t know there’s anything wrong with playing with that toy.
But one of the other kids (and there are always plenty of these around) makes
fun of that kid. And the other kids (and there are always plenty of these
around too) can’t stop laughing at the gullible child. That kind of suffering
makes a kid retreat within himself. Blessed is that child (and adults know this
is true) who can resist this bullying and can continue to express his love
openly. But this is rare, because we don’t like to suffer. The easiest way to
make the suffering stop for that kid is to shut down.
Something we should learn as Christians is that suffering is
not the worst thing. We don’t have to avoid suffering at all costs. If we have
decided that we are going to avoid suffering at all costs, then we are going to
retreat to our mental fortresses, ready to shoot at anything that moves. Being
open makes a person vulnerable to other’s attacks.
It seems like being willing to suffer is a terrible idea.
And yet this is what our Lord Jesus did by going to the cross. He most
certainly did not need to go to the
cross. There was no law that said he had to suffer so severely. His friend,
Peter, thought it was a terrible idea for him to go about the Christ in that
way. But Peter was wrong. What Jesus did was good. So we, too, should be open
and vulnerable, and not be afraid of suffering.
This means that we should also be open to being corrected.
Remember how I started today. Nobody likes being corrected. We only want to
correct others. There’s a good reason why we don’t like to be corrected. It’s
because it hurts to be corrected. We don’t want to suffer, and so we might
retreat into some fortress, guns drawn, and refuse to be corrected in any way.
Here’s the thing, though: Sometimes we need to be corrected. That’s an
understatement. We often need to be corrected.
This is something that sets Christians apart from others. By
nature everybody hates to be corrected, but those who are converted to faith in
Christ eventually become grateful for being corrected. Wise King Solomon says
in our Old Testament reading: “To ears that listen, a wise person’s
correction is like a gold ring or like jewelry made of pure gold.” A wise
person corrects. The person listens and is corrected. That correction is like a
gold ring or jewelry made of pure gold. The reason why we like gold rings and
jewelry is because we like to look at them. We find them beautiful. The one who
is converted to faith in Christ is thankful that they have been turned away
from the broad, easy road that leads to destruction.
Blessed is the person who hears a hard word, who takes it to
heart, and is humbled by it. There is pain and suffering that goes along with
this, but it is a good kind of suffering. It is a suffering that is healthy.
It’s like when a doctor cleans out an infected wound. It might hurt like the
dickens to have the doctor poking around in there, cleaning out the filth,
packing it with gauze. It hurts, but it is good. So it is, also, with the
sinner who is brought to repentance. It hurts, but being corrected is a good
thing.
Sometimes people turn Jesus’s statement, “Judge not, lest
you be judged,” into an absolute principle. They take it to mean that
nobody should ever be corrected. That is incorrect. It is obviously incorrect.
Jesus judges and corrects a lot. In our Gospel reading you see him correcting
others. In fact, it is obvious that the whole situation is quite tense and
awkward.
Jesus asks them, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
Silence. Nobody wants to stick their neck out. Nobody wants to be corrected.
Jesus heals the man suffering from edema. Then he asks them another question: “Which
of you, if your son or an ox would fall into a well on a Sabbath day, would not
immediately pull him out?” Silence. The answer is obvious, but they are
probably angry with Jesus for making them feel embarrassed. And when Jesus sees
how they are jockeying for the best seats, engaged in that ridiculous contest
for who is the most popular, Jesus tells them that they should take the lowest
seat. “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles
himself will be exalted.”
Being corrected like this might have made their ears burn
and their cheeks bright red. Ouch. So embarrassing! But if only they could
embrace what Jesus has told them as though it were a gold ring, or some jewelry
made from pure gold! Jesus is a good doctor. He is working to heal them. The
pain involved is for their good.
Jesus is also talking about correcting others with that
parable about the man who has a beam in his eye. It is not as though Jesus is
forbidding any and every correction in that parable. After all, he himself says,
“First remove the beam that is in your own eye. Then you will be able to see
clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” The speck’s no good.
It’s good to get that out of there. But imagine the bumbling and fumbling that
would take place if your eye doctor had a beam swinging around the examination
room every time he turned his head! Nothing good is going to come from that.
Whether it is right to judge others or not depends on the
heart of the one who is doing it. If the heart is good, then the judgement is
going to be good. If the heart is evil, then the judgement is probably going to
be self-seeking. Correcting others with the motive of helping them can be one
of the most loving things a person can do. It is very loving because often correcting
others is not appreciated (to say the least). Trying to correct someone might
get you a whole lot of abuse and scorn in return. They might unload that
machine gun of theirs on you in return.
But not all correcting of others is done this way. Sometimes
people correct others to show the world how wonderfully pious they are, what a
fine grasp of science they might have, or how especially suited they are to
judge. It’s a way of dominating over others. It feels good to dominate.
Dominating over others makes a person think that he is better than others. When
God’s Law is used for this activity it is a misuse of holy things for vain and
idolatrous purposes.
Some very evil so-called Christians like to see others
squirm in the pain they can cause with their judgements. This would be like a
doctor who is interested in torturing and killing his patients rather than
healing them. That would be a very evil doctor. This is very thing that the
devil likes best. In a way, he is very good at judging. He knows just where to
hit. His goal is to have people be in despair and remain in despair. He wants
them to hate themselves. If possible, he’d like it if people would murder
themselves. Often the judgments that he throws around are true, but he doesn’t
want anyone to move on from these truths to the higher truths of God’s mercy.
He wants them to remain in their misery. He does not want them to have a good
conscience.
All genuine, Christian correction is going to have the goal
of giving the sinner a good conscience. When a sinner has been humbled, the
sinner must be urged to embrace Christ’s redemption and salvation. It is not
enough to just clean out the wound with all the pain that goes along with that.
Salve must be applied. Medicine must be given. And that medicine is God’s full
and free pardon and acceptance of the sinner for the sake of Jesus. To the one
who has been humbled, God himself says, “Come up higher, my friend. Sit next
to me.” That is a wonderful thing.
Let me sum up what we’ve talked about today. First, it is
good to be open, even though being open makes you vulnerable to being hurt.
Second, it is good to be corrected, even though being corrected causes pain and
suffering. Being corrected is healthy and leads to life. Refusing correction
will bring about gangrene and death. Third, it is important that when we
correct others we do it for their good, and not for our own perverse pleasure.
We must be like a good doctor who wants the patient to do well. Correcting and
judging others for one’s own benefit is evil. May we all be corrected by Jesus,
the good physician.
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